Thanks, Love

The treats are here, and though they are less impressive than they would have been on Friday, at least I'm no longer in the doghouse with my colleagues.

Did the box of books come, or is that going to happen some other day this week?

Mythos of Creation

One of the great theologians of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis, defined a myth as a story told in such a way that all people could understand it, regardless of age, religion, or education. This definition has shaped my Christian worldview more than any other single factor.

When Darwin first published his world-changing book, "The Origin of Species", the Christian establishment responded with a combination of horror and ridicule. It was not long before the ridicule gave way before the primal fear that a more reasonable explanation had just supplanted the one in which they had a vested interest. Not surprisingly, they began to defend their worldview, which was so tied up in their egos that it really was about self-defense. Fundamentalism was born.

The basic premise of fundamentalism is that the Bible is the true and literal word of God, and that therefore, everything in it happened exactly as related. This view had, of course, existed before, but it wasn't until fundamentalism became a force to be reckoned with that anyone tried to justify it scientifically. The Christian community bought into the scientific demand for proof, but they held on to their previous handed-down-from-on-high view of Scripture. The result was an attempt by Christians to find proof that the Bible was the literal truth.

The problem is that it is very difficult to prove something when all you have as evidence is the end result of an open system. Christian scientists have been using the argument of the open system vs. the closed experiment for decades as a weapon against the evolutionist science. However, they fell into their own trap. If it is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that an evolution happened as scientists said it did, it is equally impossible to prove the opposite - that God created it as is. Their argument has taken many branches and forms over the years, of which the silliest IMO was the one that said, "If God could create the whole world, he could also create it with evidence already in it for a history that never happened." I won't go into the logical faults of this argument. It's just not worth the byte storage.

C.S. Lewis postulated that the anti-Darwin Christians of the nineteenth century and since had shot themselves in the foot by placing the burden of proof on Christianity - indeed, on God. He took a diametrically opposing view to that of fundamentalist science. He saw the entire creation story, and many others in the Old Testament, as myths. They were stories told in such a way that a small child or a learned adult of any time or culture in history would be able to understand the salient points. The important distinction he made was between truth and literal truth. The first is the point of the stories; the second is the niggling little details.

If God had wanted to explain exactly what happened during creation, I have no doubt he could have done so, scientifically. The problem is, whose science would he use to explain it? Ours? In that case, only a few very well-educated people right now would be able to understand it, leaving the rest of history and the less-learned in the dark. Nineteenth-century science? We know what kind of holes were inherent in that. The science of two centuries from now? Again, that would leave most of history in the dark. Essentially, God chose the format of the myth because of its universality. The specifics were not important. The big message of the creation story soars above the scientific details.

The salient points, then:
1) God created everything that is.
2) He did so in his own time, in his own way, with an ultimate plan in mind.
3) Each and every creature has a role to play in his creation, especially humankind.

If these points are the basis for one's worldview, there is no need to argue scientific details. The questions and arguments can be narrowed down to one: who or what started the ball rolling? Was it a single God? Was it many Gods? Was it pure chance, as the true evolutionists have postulated? The fact is, there is no hard evidence for or against any of these possibilities. Each is just as likely as the next. It comes down to a choice. Which one do you want to believe?

I have chosen, consciously, to believe in a God who created a vast universe and the vast variations in it. I have more recently chosen to believe that there is more than one path back to God, though I do believe in the concept of sin, even original sin. I have made these choices because the idea that it all happened by chance is too dark for me. I can't handle being an accident. Therefore, I've chosen to believe that I am here for a reason, that I was planned, that all of us were planned and have a purpose on this earth.

All of my other deep-seated beliefs stem from this one. I believe that the aborted fetus had a destiny and a right to live it out. I believe that a large part of my purpose for being here is to help the people within my sphere of influence achieve whatever purpose God has for them. I believe that striving towards that purpose will make me a better person and will make the society I live in better, bringing all of us closer to God.

As for the science - I praise God that he was so far beyond our concept of him that we can learn, and explore, and experiment with his creation for as long as we walk this earth, and never discover all of it.

I have faith, first in a great God, and then in humanity to fulfill his purpose for it. I'm a deist and a humanist.


*Disclaimer: I have used the masculine pronoun out of simplicity and an understanding that language, a human invention, cannot hope to really capture all that God is. For those of you who feel the term "goddess" might be more appropriate, or whatever other term you'd prefer, go right ahead. What we call him does not change him.