"Many secular and many evangelical voices agree on one ‘truism’—that if you are an orthodox Christian with a high view of the authority of the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution in any form at all. New Atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins and creationist writers such as Ken Ham seem to have arrived at consensus on this, and so more and more in the general population are treating it as given. If you believe in God, you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can’t believe in God."In an excellent essay for BioLogos, Rev. Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church) argues why Biblical faith and the scientific understanding of the formation of human life through evolutional biological processes aren't incompatible at all.Keller does make a sharp distinction - and rightly so - between this belief that human life was formed through evolutional biological processes (EBP), and the so-called "Grand Theory of Evolution" (GTE) that claims that it is the explanation for every aspect of human nature.
He also choses to retain the notion of the Fall as an event in history - which, somehow at least, must be maintained indeed. Rather unneccesarily, Keller connects this with Adam and Eve as historical individuals - his own argument would certainly allow for alternative readings of the account of Adam and Eve.
Nevertheless, this is a rather clear - and accessible - essay, on a hot topic.
Read it here.
Or read the Dutch translation.
ForumC is holding a conference - Vertel, verhelder en verwonder - on how to speak of creation and evolution in the local Church (September 24 2014, Utrecht).
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