Creation

Dyson once wrote, "Mind is inherent in every electron".

The most common question I am asked by college students concerns the issue of Evolution. The question always implies that somehow Science has disproved Christianity, that evolutionary theory has undermined the existence of God. It's difficult to understand why students have so readily come to that conclusion. Is it that science is taught as if it does displace the notion of a higher Being? True scientists would never dare draw that conclusion from science, for the issues of faith are outside the scope of pure science. The popularizer, the teacher, the media personality, may well move into the realm of pseudo science, but then only to reassure their own atheism.

The problem may simply be that Evolutionary theory seems to oppose the Bible record of creation. Certainly Creationism is diametrically opposed to Evolution. In such a contest one must be wrong, and if the Bible seems wrong at this point, then it may be it is wrong on other matters of fact. It may be wrong about the existence of God.

There are many issues on which Christians divide and the story of the Creation of the Universe is one such issue. There are those who view the Bible story of creation as a literal scientific description of the development of the Universe. On the other hand, there are those who regard it as a parable, a myth, a story containing eternal truth, but not a scientific description. The argument will never be resolved, certainly not in this age. So, leaving aside the debate on Bible interpretation, does the evolutionary process oppose the concept of a higher Being?

We may properly argue that Evolutionary theory has nothing whatsoever to say concerning the existence of God. Darwin believed in God, and his theory of Evolution did not negate his belief. Evolutionary theory simply explains the process of the development of complex species. As such, the theory certainly does not oppose the belief in a higher Being. In fact,it actually supports such a belief. When we examine the Evolutionary process we observe that random selection is unidirectional and that there seems to exist in the process an inherent self organization of complex systems. It is as if there is present in the Universe an inherent self organizing capability, such that given the right environment, complex life will emerge and develop. Creativity seems to be the nature of the Universe, such that things spontaneously come into being - evolving in great leaps, growing, changing, developing, expanding, becoming conscious and intelligent. The process moves from chaos to order, and why, that's the question? There seems no apparent reason why the evolutionary process should develop creatively from simple to complex, from chaos to order, from dumb to intelligent.

We may want to argue that there lies outside the system a force ordering, controlling and sustaining. Yet we don''t have to hold an interventionist theory like that to explain the inherent unidirectional creativity of the Universe. A blueprint that drives nature toward ever greater complexity does seem to exist. Surely it is not unreasonable to postulate a grand Designer, a Divine Architect behind the blueprint?

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