Question/insight #56: My friend thinks that humans and all creatures were not created by GOD but that we evolved. He said there is scientific proof of this. I know in my heart that we were created by GOD, but I have nothing scientific or no hard facts other than the Bible to show my friend. Please advise me, if you can.
Response #56:
You have a very good question, for which there is a different "scientific" answer than the answer your friend gave you. There is an answer that is based upon the Bible and upon the "divine" Science illustrated in the Bible, an answer that comes from a very honest approach to the Bible texts, and an answer for which there is "scientific proof" in the way Jesus prescribed.
There are actually two different accounts of creation in Genesis:
The Adam and Eve story provides us with great object lessons but not with a historical record of our actual ancestry. The Adam and Eve story, which is told in the second account of creation, is an ancient allegory. Bible scholars at the best seminaries have recognized this for well over 100 years. (See http://www.bibletexts.com/glossary/gen.htm.)
A major part of Paul's 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians serves as an excellent commentary on the two accounts of creation in Genesis. (See http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/soul.htm for an explanation of Paul's commentary of Gen 1 & 2.)
In the Genesis 1 account of creation, "God" (Elohim) made both man and woman as complete.
Genesis 1 - 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them... 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.Genesis 2 - 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done...
In the Genesis 2 account of creation, "the Lord God" (Yahweh Elohim) made man out of dirt (or dust) and woman out of the rib of man.
Genesis 2 - 6 A mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground - 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed... 20 ...But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
As is easily seen, there are two different descriptions of "man" in the first two chapters of Genesis, each representing a different biblical account of creation. Yet in both chapters "man" and "Adam" are translations of the same Hebrew word adam. The Strong's number for this Hebrew word is #0120.
Biblical scholars today have strong evidence that the creation story of Genesis 2 and 3 represents an earlier tradition than the creation account in Genesis 1. (For example, see The Old Testament Library: Genesis, by Gerhard von Rad, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972, pages 24-25. See also HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, Revised Edition, edited by Paul J. Achtemeier and the Society of Biblical Literature, New York: HarperCollins, 1996, pages 210-211. See also http://www.bibletexts.com/glossary/gen.htm.)
The discovery that the Genesis 2 and 3 ("Adam and Eve") account of creation likely was written several hundred years earlier than the Genesis 1 ("In the beginning...") account of creation fits well with what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth (1Co 15:45-49, NRSV):
Thus it is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.
(See also Rom 8:28,29; 2Co 3:17,18; Col 1:12-16; Col 3:9-11; Heb 1:1-3.)
It is helpful to note that the word translated above as a living "being" is translated from the Greek word "psuche" <Strong's #5590>, which in English means a "soul" or "breath-based, sensual, animal-like life." Here Paul is directly paraphrasing from Genesis 2:7. The word translated above as "physical" is translated from the related Greek adjective "psuchikos" <Strong's #5591>, which in English means "breath-based, sensual, animal-like."
Mary Baker Eddy appears to have been the first Christian writer to address biblical creation, science, and evolution in a way that reflected an honest approach to both current biblical scholarship and current scientific conclusions. Utilizing the early findings of biblical criticism, her comments on the two different accounts of creation are similar to what today's scholars have also concluded. In her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which first appeared in 1875, she wrote:
It may be worth while here to remark that, according to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two distinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis. One is called the Elohistic, because the Supreme Being is therein called Elohim. The other document is called the Jehovistic, because Deity therein is always called Jehovah, -- or Lord God, as our common version translates it. Throughout the first chapter of Genesis and in three verses of the second,--in what we understand to be the spiritually scientific account of creation, -- it is Elohim (God) who creates. From the fourth verse of chapter two to chapter five, the creator is called Jehovah, or the Lord. (S&H, page 523:14-27)
Eddy was also versed in current scientific theories. She commented on Darwin's evolution theory, the fall, and God's creation. In the process she defended the gospel with a new vocabulary -- almost a 'new tongue' -- to engage gospel critics and fellow-Christians. Her method of using then current terms of science, popular theology, medicine, logic, and philosophy had many similarities with the methodology of some of the early Christian writers, especially Origen (185-255 A.D.), who has been called the "father of Christian theology."
Origen was the most prolific writer of the pre-Constantine church, producing around two thousand works. He wrote not only doctrinal and apologetic works, but also commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. Many of his teachings reflect brilliant spiritual insights. On the other hand, some of his teachings are considered non-orthodox. He was condemned by some orthodox churches for denying the literal truth of Scripture and the equality of the Father and the Son in the Trinity. (For more details, see http://www.bibletexts.com/glossary/early-christians.htm#origen.)
Eddy derived her conclusions regarding true creation primarily from the first biblical account of creation (Gen 1:1-Gen 2:4a) in contrast to the second biblical account of creation (Gen 2:4b-Gen 3:24) or even scientific theories. She wrote:
Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause. Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal. It is the tangled barbarisms of learning which we deplore,--the mere dogma, the speculative theory, the nauseous fiction. (S&H 195:15-25)
Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in the right direction and very much in the wrong. (S&H 172:3-6)
In its history of mortality, Darwin's theory of evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most theories. Briefly, this is Darwin's theory, -- that Mind produces its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power to recreate the universe, including man. Material evolution implies that the great First Cause must become material, and afterwards must either return to Mind or go down into dust and nothingness. (S&H 547:15-22)
BibleTexts.com comment: One of the many terms by which Eddy refers to God is Mind, with an uppercase M., but she certainly was not the first Christian to do so. Mind is a term for God that was used by some prominent early Christians, too. For example, highly respected Clement of Alexandria (150-215 A.D.), in his Exhortation to the Greeks 10 [ANF 2:199], wrote:
For the image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind [the Father], the Divine Word, the archetypal light of light; the image of the Word is the true man, the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made "in the image and likeness of God," assimilated to the Divine Word [Logos] in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational [logikos]; but effigies sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man which is visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of humanity, manifestly wide of the truth.
In his article on "God" in the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Second Edition (edited by Everett Ferguson (NY: Garland Publishing, 1998, page 471), Robert M. Grant writes:
Athenagoras [writing between 176-180 A.D.] was the first apologist to identify God as Mind (Leg. 10.3). Philo accasionally referred to God in this way, treating him as "the active cause, the most pure and unsullied Mind of the universe" (On the Creation of the World 8), but such a doctrine was only one of his interpretations. Athenagoras himself also used the term "Mind" in regard to the Son...
Both Athenagoras and Theophilus [writing in the late 2nd century A.D.] are willing to call the Son or Logos the Mind of the Father (Clement calls the Logos the Son of the Father-Mind).
One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he adds that mankind has ascended through all the lower grades of existence. Evolution describes the gradations of human belief, but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that material methods are impossible in divine Science and that all Science is of God, not of man. (S&H 551:9-16)
BibleTexts.com comment: It should be noted that Eddy used relevant modern terms and analogies to enable today's readers to better understand and appreciate biblical teachings, just as did early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Athenagorus, Theophilus, Tertullian, and Origen. For instance, when she used the term divine Science or simply Science (with an uppercase S), she was referring to the biblical term, the Holy Spirit, which the Gospel of John also refers to as "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13) and as "the Comforter" (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7; variously translated as the Advocate, the Counselor, the Paraclete, the Defense Attorney). Thus, when reading Eddy's writings, one can understand the intended biblical concept by silently substituting the phrase "Holy Spirit" wherever one reads "Science" or "divine Science." To Eddy, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, was the basis of Christian practice and Christian demonstration as described by Paul (1Co 2:4):
4 My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
God creates and governs the universe, including man. The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind that makes them. Mortal mind would transform the spiritual into the material, and then recover man's original self in order to escape from the mortality of this error. Mortals are not like immortals, created in God's own image; but infinite Spirit being all, mortal consciousness will at last yield to the scientific fact and disappear, and the real sense of being, perfect and forever intact, will appear. (S&H 295:5)
The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained. The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal. It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith... (S&H 547:23-32)
In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, -- thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, -- perfect God and perfect man,--as the basis of thought and demonstration. (S&H 259:6)
Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free... (S&H 171:4-8)
On spiritual evolution and "scientific proof," to which your friend refers, Eddy wrote:
Sneers at the application of the word Science to Christianity cannot prevent that from being scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated according to a divine given rule, and subjected to proof. (S&H 341:12-16)
Paul alludes to "doubtful disputations." The hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are summoned to the support of Christianity, "making wise the simple." (S&H 341:1-4)
Again, as quoted above, Paul so honestly stated in his letter to the Christians in Corinth (1Co 2:4,5, ESV):
4 My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
This is a reminder of Jesus, who instructed his disciples, " Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." (Mat 10:8, ESV). He also said (Joh 14:12), "The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father." Rather than arguing theology or science, Jesus even replied to the disciples of John the Baptist, who were questioning his ministry (Luk 7:22, NRSV): "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them."
In your answers to your friend, and in your daily "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," what a joy it can be to humbly and gratefully acknowledge along with Jesus (Joh 5:30, NRSV): "I can do nothing on my own." As explained by Paul (Philippians 2:13, TEV), "God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose."
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1996-2005 Robert Nguyen Cramer
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