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Some Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Science, Evolution and Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Lyle D. Campbell
Lyle D. Campbell*
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina at Spartanburg, Spartanburg, S.C. 29303
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Abstract

In Christian faith, the Bible stands equally true with nature as coexpressions of God's self-revelation. Literalism means the acceptance of that record as true, whether of rocks, fossils, or scriptures. “Biblical literalism” as used by many fundamental sects additionally requires very restricted interpretations formulated more for countering natural and theological “heresies” than for conformity with the Bible. Yet Genesis, in Hebrew, uses phenomenological language and idiom to describe the Creator and creation, leaving great latitude on the questions of how and when. Prominent among “conflicts” which have influenced Judeo-Western thought are: Babylonian and Alexandrian conquests, Greek logic and paganism, Islamic scholarship, the Renaissance and Reformation, and the Age of Reason, including the atheistic materialism of David Hume. James Hutton, Hume's protege, developed the idea of sufficiency of natural causes in the absence of a creator. Lyell and Darwin then extended this substantive uniformitarianism to inorganic and organic evolution. Both Creationism and Darwinism are predicated on a dualistic cosmological model of an instant, miraculous creation versus a self-existent, evolving, Time-Energy-Matter universe. Darwinism draws from the earth evidence for change over eons of time, and assumes self-existence and chance causation. Creationism insists on an earth created young with the appearance or illusion of age, denying time and therefore chance. As debate rages, neither side seems willing to reexamine the Bible, which plainly teaches that God's purposes are normally worked out through natural law which has no existence apart from His sustaining will. The material Universe is, according to the Bible, the self-expression of a God who cannot lie.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 1: The Evolution-Creation Controversy: Perspectives on Religion, Science, and Education-A Handbook , 1984 , pp. 27 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Paleontological Society 

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