CREATION - FACT AND FICTION
How and when was the world, in fact the whole universe, created? The answer is not yet known. The research is very much work in progress and probably always will be.
But the current theory is that there was a “big bang” billions of years ago which exploded the tiny point in which every speck of energy was crammed into a vast amount of matter which was flung outwards faster than the speed of light to form the myriad galaxies of our universe.
Don’t worry – I’ll be getting round to religion in a minute but “flung”? Doesn’t that remind us of the hymn “The servant king”: Hands that flung stars into space.
Next, where did the human race came from? Much more recent. We originated in Africa no longer than 200,000 years. Before that, apes plus our immediate ancestor homo erectus. (Just to be clear, the erectus refers to the whole body standing upright)
You and I belong to a species known as homo sapiens, which means a human capable of thought.
We have a large, complex brain (although you might wonder in some cases). We have the ability to walk on two legs. We discovered long ago how to make and use tools. And we have the capacity for language.
Now that little potted history is sometimes called the theory of evolution. It is the type of scientific study which was furiously resisted by the church for centuries. Science was the devilish enemy of religion.
That’s plain silly. It is an established truth that we come from apes via homo erectus. Fact. Pointless to deny it.
But there’s no need to deny it either. If you have faith in God – as I do (obviously) – then we can perfectly well believe that God created the universe including our world by means of the big bang. In other words, God was behind the big bang. And, later on, behind evolution.
So why have former generations of Christians so fiercely resisted the carefully researched discoveries of science? After all, did not Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, tell us that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth?
We have been so blessed by the work of the Holy Spirit over the years. Where we have stumbled blindly in the error of our ways, the Holy Spirit has gradually and gently taught us that slavery was wrong, that women and men should be treated equally, that racism is cruel and unnecessary, that physical and romantic love between two people of the same sex can be respected and honoured.
And we should equally bless the Holy Spirit for leading us into the truths of medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and all other benefits to humanity.
So I ask again – what is the problem with the big bang and the theory of evolution, the origin of the species etc?
The answer is simple and sad. Notwithstanding our advances in scientific knowledge, parts of the church have stubbornly clung on to treating the first two Chapters of the book of Genesis as if they were literally true. But, they were never intended to be read that way.
Chapter One contains that lovely, poetic story about God creating the world (our world, not the universe) in six days.
Sunday – let there be light
Monday- let there be a vault between heaven and earth
Tuesday – let there be sea and dry land
Wednesday – let there be vegetation, trees and fruit
Thursday – let there by day and night
Friday – let there be birds and fish, wild beasts, cattle and reptiles and finally men and women in God’s own image to be in charge of the rest.
Saturday – I’m knackered so let this be a holy day of rest.
[If you’re wondering why I started with Sunday and ended with Saturday, the answer is the Sabbath, the day of rest, is Saturday for Jews and was for Christians until the Pope changed it to Sunday in the year 321.]
Genesis chapter one is a beautiful mythical story. It’s a poem, a meditation on what should be the true relationship between humanity and God (He made us in His own image, it says) and, all too topical today, it reflects on the true relationship between humanity and nature.
Genesis is not particularly ancient. Probably not written down until the 6th century BC, by which time the Israelites had lived through hard times and had had plenty of chances to reflect on how things were, how they had been and how God might have wished them to be.
Chapter 2 of Genesis contains a different, second, creation story – this time focussed in on what should ideally be the nature of the relationship between God and individual human beings.
[ Chapter 3, by the way, continues the version started in Chapter 2 and there it gets really interesting, because it tackles the thorny question of how evil came into the world, using as props forbidden fruit, a femme fatale and a serpent. It is dramatically known as “The Fall” and It deserves any number of sermons but not, alas, today.]
So back to chapter two.
More pre-echoes here for me of the later Incarnation. We are invited to imagine a down-to-earth God who doesn’t mind getting His hands dirty, scooping up the dust or clay of the earth to form a man (a fully fledged homo sapiens). He breathes into the man’s nostrils to give him life. Rather like, wouldn’t you say, that scene in the upper room after the resurrection – Christ breathed on the apostles and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”.
Unlike in the first 6-day creation story, this time the male comes first and the female second. The image is a distinctly bizarre one of the man having an extra rib for God to build the female from. Hence the ironic title of the Women’s Lib magazine “Spare rib”.
Slightly silly as this image might appear, the penultimate verse of the chapter A man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife and they become one body triggers for me Christ’s later teaching about the sanctity of marriage.
So, finally, what’s the message from all this?
Firstly: TRUST THE SCIENCE (a directive recently hi-jacked by the covid experts). Don’t shy away from the truths the Holy Spirit has led us into about the creation of the world and of our race. GOD is behind and in all that.
But secondly, TREASURE AND TAKE TO HEART the opening book of the bible – those fascinating, colourful stories at the beginning of Genesis expressing images and wishes about life, the deeper purposes of existence, the order and beauty of creation. In every instance, as chapter one says “God saw that it was good”.
We are talking about the ultimate vocation of humanity. And as we read on and on in the bible through to the actual events of Christ’s life and death, we witness the drama of sin and the great hope of our salvation.