Friday, April 22, 2005
Science fuddles Creation
After at least five thousand years, the quest to discover the origins of humankind has made headway but remains a scientific and religious mystery. The Christian scientist, Charles Hummel, makes his attempt to explain away the misconceptions between the traditional Christian belief and the conventional scientific belief of how the Earth, how the human, and how the universe first formed. Hummel discusses in his book, The Galileo Connection, the interpretation of the creation story in Genesis. Many of the problems in Genesis and modern science, Hummel believes, originate out of how the Bible or the Torah is interpreted. Additionally, Hummel assesses the use of the author’s writing style and its purpose for us today. Personally however, it raises the question that if this part of the Bible is only figurative what other areas are only artistic features. In order to come to an open conclusion; information, logic, and discernment must come together as in Hummel’s theories of interpretation, of purpose, and of Christian belief.
To understand where the author, as Hummel presents, is coming from, the historical context and the literary genre need to be explored. Hummel says, “What the author meant then determines what the message means now,” (Hummel 199-200) a valid point on his part. The author is writing in a time where the Israelites had gone away from their forefather’s belief. Instead of having a written history or story, the Israelites relied on the passing of stories through generations and because of this, these stories had lost their poignant impact. If Moses were indeed the author, or at least one of the main authors, a logically analysis of the story would see that there are pagan influences. Moses grew up in Egypt as a prince of Egypt, where he would most definitely have been educated about all of the gods and their creation stories. Within the pagan religions, there are similar creation constructions, where the god had formed earth which follows similarly to the Judeo-Christian creation story. Hummel believes that because of the loss of faith within the Israelite nation, that the author wrote the book of Genesis to create a written work about a monotheistic creator; attempting to correct the belief of mislead and misguided Israelites. In order to create this creation story of a monotheistic god that would be possible for the Israelites to easily understand required the borrowing of familiar stories, pagan creation stories. That is the historical context of the author’s time; a time where the people doubted the stories of the Jewish God, a time where they had picked up the pagan polytheistic religions, and a time where the author wanted restoration of the true God to be reinstated.
The literary genre of the first chapters of Genesis; lack the evidence of a parable. Poems require some sort of tempo, rhythm or style, and yet that does not completely describe what is written. In Hummel’s opinion, Genesis is prose and poetry combined and that the story-teller has the ability to communicate a story however the story-teller wishes to communicate it. In a sort of poem or prose writing, the author does not need to keep to the chronological order or the other facts but to create the author’s own fantastic narrative or fairy-tale and after reviewing the entire book of Genesis, the book has not been written, necessarily, in a chronological order. This idea supports Hummel’s theory that the Bible has been written in a story or tale fashion.
Hummel considers the historical context and the literary genre to be of the utmost importance when analyzing the creation story. With the Israelites in rebellion against God and falling towards the pagan, monotheistic religions, the author had to help correct this problem. The author had to bring people back to the Judeo-god. To do this, the author, in Hummel’s theory, had to create comprehensive monotheistic tale that would capture the attention of a wayward audience. Capturing the audience, according to Hummel, does not mean that the author had to speak ‘truth.’ The author only needs to demonstrate God’s order in the universe and that God is the all-powerful, all-capable God of the Jews. The early chapters are to bring back the people to the author’s one god and not to actually teach a true science lesson though the people then; would have recognized this information as fact. Hummel maintains his position that God would have purposely allowed His people to be deceived to draw them back to Him, under false pretensions.
In order to find ways of explaining what science has found and what is transcribed in the Bible, two theories: day-age theory and concordism theory were presented. The day-age theory is explaining the usage of “day” in the original language. In other instances, “day” or “yom” in the original language is use to refer to many different meanings of time, including “era” and “time” as part of the “day” definition. If “yom” is used in this way, the way that the author wrote Genesis could actually mean that it was in the sixth era that man was created. Hummel considers the day-age theory to be an attempt to explain away inconsistencies in the Bible with modern science and he does not agree with what he considers; an attempt to work the Bible to fit how it has previously been interpreted. As for concordism, the theories that were created to try to explain the Bible as a scientific book and scientific findings together, Hummel also has an opinion on these. “…they attempt to answer questions the text does not address” (Hummel 213) sums up the topic of concordist and day-age theories. He believes that the people that struggle to find a viable account for the events that formed the universe through using the Bible as a scientific book, that they are using the Bible in way that was never intended.
Looking to the Bible for exactly how and when the universe or the Earth was created is not wise in the eyes of modern-day scientists. For Hummel, accepting the Bible as a literary scientific model of what happened would be like an astronomer’s findings be interpreted in such a way that others use them as a basis to their philosophical outlook on life (Hummel 213). If this were true, it would be outrageous to believe such a thing. The point of the Bible is to have a guide through life. Since its purpose is not and was not to relay modern science to people of throughout the course of history, it should not be read as if that were its purpose.
Should the purpose not be to read the Bible or Genesis as history, then what is the purpose? To answer that, is to answer what is the significance of Genesis to us today. The purpose is to teach the people of the Earth about the order of creation and the role of God in our lives. The information may not be one hundred percent accurate as long as it teaches the fundamentals of God. Today, the significance of book of Genesis is that it lays the foundations for an entire series of letters and books that make up the Bible. The foundations set by the author are built upon by mostly the Jewish people and then those who were influenced by them. Israel is built up and their nation grows in a cycle of “peace, rebellion [from the teachings of God], suffering, repentance, reconciliation” (Ada Bible Church Sermon). Unity under one god was important to the success of Israel as a nation and the records show that during the times where the leaders followed the teachings of God, that it was during these times of peace and reconciliation that the nation prospered the most and during the other times when the land failed and the nation was attacked. The purpose was achieved, instituting and overriding the popular pagan religions and creating a monotheistic religion. Today, the importance of the Christian religion is somewhat different. For Hummel, one of the purposes for us today of Genesis is to keep the religion to a monotheistic belief and to reject all the other gods that society places before us. Also, Hummel believes that we see nature as being important to God because of the effort that was applied to piecing Genesis together and that in a modern world that we should take caution of the nature that God cares so deeply about. The author created a story that united a nation and a creed to care for the environment, which seems to be the significance of Genesis as Charles Hummel writes.
Interpreting what the Bible says is a tricky and complicated process. Hummel has attempted to combine the two views, that of modern science and that of traditional Christian views, an attempt that I believes falls short on the Christian view. There are a few points that he states but if the logic is followed out, the results destroy the very religion that he is trying, with good intent, to protect. Taking the first of his arguments, and moving through, I will point out the problems and short-comings of Hummel’s reasoning.
Starting with the historical context and literary genre argument that states the reason for the author writing such a story is to persuade the people of Israel to go back to the god of their forefathers and to give them a story that no longer contained the pagan gods but the one holy God. If the story had little or no truth to it as in God did not create the Earth as Genesis says that He did, that would require that the foundations of Christianity and even Judaism to taken out. For if a man wrote the book simply as he interpreted what could have happened – the book is not truth. It is on the foundation that God created all Earth and the universe that we see Jesus in the light that we do. Following the story, it is vital that God created the Earth as He said He did for if He created Adam and Eve where they did wrong in His eyes, He would have had to send His Son to Earth to save His people. In a strict Big Bang theory, there can be no Adam or Eve and no fall which means that there is no need for redemption and hence, no need for a Christ. A second thought to this argument; for God to have the author write a story such as the one he did and it not be correct, God would have had to write a book that deceives His people. The idea that Hummel has about the book not being written scientifically makes sense until looked at from the other side, at which point we realize that the perfect God had to use a combination and modification of pagan religions to draw people to Him. Hummel does not seem to take account for the fact that a perfect God has to use lies to draw people to Him in order for his theory to be correct, showing how the theory – once followed through to the end – lacks on the Christian view of creation.
Continuing along, Hummel’s response to the ‘day-age’ and concordism is that they are just excuses or pitiful attempts to explain religion around science; that the theories scurry around to pick up on the newest scientific discovery. Hummel sounds as if, every time that science finds something new that Christians must try to find a way to explain it in their own way yet this is exactly what science does as well. Science tries to explain something, anything and then makes a theory. Once that theory can be proven wrong, a new theory is created; however, Hummel hints to us that when others try to create a new theory to fit the new information that this is wrong and twisting the Bible. Perhaps the Bible was not intended to be a scientific school book but if we do not believe that there was an Adam and an Eve who succumbed to temptation, then there is no need to be saved.
The final point about Hummel is his justification of the significance of Genesis. In Hummel’s analysis, he believes that the point was to unite a nation under one god, bringing them back from a time, or times of unbelief and to give the modern world an appreciation for nature. For one, we no longer have the need to stay together as a nation, though it did serve that function well for the Israelites. Instead there is the thought that there is something higher than all of our chaos, our technology, and our own selves and it is what drives people to believe in the Judeo-Christian god. It gives people hope, hope that there is something higher than us and knows how to handle the situation in a senseless world.
God is great enough that He could have done anything. Science helps us to understand the Creator and provides for a glimpse of what our Creator is capable of doing. If all He did were the creation of the universe through what science calls the Big Band, then that would be enough for me to give my life to Him. If He were to have created the Earth, in His mysterious way, in six, twenty-four periods, then I would still worship Him. I cannot say that I have the answer, nobody does. I do not know what the correct answer is about how the Earth came into form. I do know that Hummel’s logic is flawed. I do know that there is a supreme creator god. I do know that I worship that supreme God and His creation; however it may have come to be.