Can evolution and creation coexist

Answer 1

Various Opinions on the Subject

• Yes, many people believe that god created and started the whole process and then allowed life to evolve on its own. However it is important to remember that when we say the "theory" of evolution, scientists don't mean it the way you do in your everyday life. In Science theory is an explanation for observed (i.e. observed to be true) phenomenon, it does not mean "well this could be how it works" or "this might be true". It is something that is testable, falsifiable, makes accurate predictions and has been proved. However when we say "Creationist Theory" we do mean "theory" as we use it in everyday use because the theory of Creationism is not testable and is based solely on faith.
• No. Evolution, as defined by the American National Association of Biology Teachers, is an "unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process". However, Christians believe that God created the heavens and the earth and directly controls every aspect of our lives. These statements are not compatible. Now, there is a growing group of scientist that believe that one can accept evolution as scientific fact and still believe in a creator God, because science and faith are different and distinct aspects of life. Though a large amount of Christians are accepting this view, there are still those who believe that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive and that it takes just as much faith to believe in evolution as God. As one can see by looking at the many contradictory answers given on this page, the debate is by no means resolved and Christians and evolutionists are still as opposed to one another's viewpoints as before.

• Creation and Evolution are the same thing, it's just that creation was written in a time when people didn't have the ability to understand something like evolution and how long it took to reach the stage we are now. God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th, but how long is one of God's days compared to ours. One of God's days could be a million years to us or more. As for the parts of the Old Testament that speaks of what God has said or done: such as Genesis; had to be bestowed on the authors of the Torah (the original Hebrew text in which the old testament was pulled from) from a higher power, because they had no way of knowing. If it said God created the world, and then all the animals in it as well as humans by starting with single celled organisms and making us evolve into marine life, then land walking mammals would have confused people in those days. Basically we weren't ready for that knowledge. Evolution is just a perfect method to make us earn our existence in this physical world God has made for us.

• So, in a nutshell; yes, creation and evolution can coexist. Basically because; the are the same story of our history and journey as a species, they're just told differently. People need to stop taking The Bible so literally, and realize that it's not a constitution, it's more like a handbook to read and draw our own conclusions from considering when and where we are in this space and time. It was written in a way so that it could be used through the ages, no matter what changes occurred; culturally, religiously, politically, and so on and so forth.

• Evolution and Creation coexist in the 'Intelligent Design' (ID) theory, according to which a Divine Creator created the world and the laws in it (the law of natural selection being one of them). They can also co-exist in the "theistic evolution" theory or the "BioLogos" theory.

• The Bible says God created Adam as a man, not a baby. He also must have created stars with their light already traveling to us, otherwise there would not have been enough time yet for us to see the distant ones. I think this means that God created these things with history. e.g. if Adam had been presented to a scientist a minute after creation, the scientist would be correct if he thought that based on all the evidence, such a man must have started life as a baby and grew into an adult.

  So what is harder for God- to create everything out of nothing, or to create everything out of nothing and with an inbuilt history that explains how it all came to be in accordance with the physical laws that he created too. If this is correct, He could have created man with an inbuilt history of evolution, but he could have done it all in a moment. So Evolution may just as well be a perfectly correct explanation for describing the history of man that God created. Both Creation and Evolution can be correct. None of this even requires you to question how long a day is- why can't it just be a normal, 24 hour day?

• Well, they are now but whether it is peacefully is another issue. If you mean both can be right the no.

• In my opinion, yes. God made everything then when something happened to his creatures he changed them.

• Science is secular, or agnostic. It says absolutely nothing about the existence of any supernatural entities. There is no part of evolutionary theory that says God can't exist, and they two aren't at ends (just look at how many Christians accept evolution, the whole Catholic church for example)

• The only area of science that opposes the concept of a god is in logic. Occam's Razor -- that the answer with the fewest unexplained facts, or assumptions, is probably the best one -- is the only thing standing in the way. Evolution works perfectly fine without any direct intervention from any god, needlessly saying a god had a hand in it is violating Occam's Razor, and is therefore inferior logic.

  But, fortunately for theists, faith isn't based on logic.

• There is no conflict between creationism and the theory of evolution. The conflict lies between creationists and evolutionists. Really, sometimes people just get an idea stuck in their heads, and you can't make it budge with a crowbar.
• Of course, the two must coexist just as the natural laws of gravity exist. As living beings we are all subject to the Universal Karmic Principles which govern our environmental atmosphere. In fact, if you look closely at these words you may infer that it is the perceived value of time and distance which underlies the nature of this inquiry by the inquirer.

• No, both can't coexist, theory of evolution couldn't be proven to be applicable to any time era, for the following reasons:

  All human beings belong to one ancestor, Adam, and Adam himself was created from mud, God created Adam and Eve, who was created from Adam's left ribs, then when Adam woke up, he found her beside him, to be his partner in life after he felt so lonely.

  Moreover, the result of breeding of two animals of different species if any, is indeed sterile, can't reproduce, ie, no opportunity to give chance for a new species to develop. Another thing, the ordinary 'ants' we live with now, were found to be the same as ants found in fossils million years ago.

  All this leads to the conclusion that the origin of life, animals and human, is being created by God, and God alone, and that each type of animal was created separately, and that the similarity in the building block of living creatures, which is the cell, strengthens the evidence that only one creator did all that, a creator who is able to bring all this vast diversity of living creatures form one building block.

• That depends mostly on what you mean by "Evolution". Creationists have (for the most part) no problem believing in evolution in the sense of gene frequencies changing in a population. This is called microevolution and evidence for it can be found in the Bible itself. When God separated the people at Babel, it speaks nothing of Him changing their bodies, just their languages. Because of this they could not associate and went their separate ways A few thousand years later and we find various ethnicities. This sort of evolution can lead to speciation depending on what definition of a species is being used.

• One Important fact I think is missing is that in the defense of the creationists, when God created the world, each day he "saw that it was good" Therefore, implying that there not need be any change to any of his creation at all.

No, evolution and creation are not compatible.See the chart below:

Creation

Evolution

Cause

God was the Cause

For every effect, there is a cause (observable)

There was not cause - 15 billion years ago for no know reason, the universe exploded itself into existence. Time, chance, and natural process created all things.

The creation of the universe is an effect with no cause (not observable).

Origin

The universe was spoken into existence by God's Word.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed by natural processes (observable).

Began with 'singularity', a tiny infinitely hot and dense point

Matter was created by a natural process (not observable).

Energy

We are devolving

Energy goes from a state of usable energy to less usable energy (observable).

We are evolving

Energy goes from a state of less usable energy to more usable energy (not observable).

Space

Earth created first (day 1)

Stars came afterwards (day 4) with the sun and moon.

Stars formed first

Earth formed afterwards

Earths

Covering

Water

Fire

Time Constraints

6 Days - The creation of the World was FINISHED in six day and is no longer taking place (observable).

Infinite Time - 4.6 billion years ago the earth evolved by natural processes. The world is in a continuous process of creation evolution (not observable).

Quality

Very Good

Primitive, Violent

Planning of

Life

By design

Accident

Origin of

Life

God

Life comes from life (observable), no known exceptions.

Forces of Nature

It is possible for life to come from non-life (not observable).

Time needed

for Life

2 Days (Faith based) - all animal/human life was created on day 5 and 6.

Millions of years (Faith based) - They don't know how it happened but given enough time they BELIEVE it will.

Species

Kind begets kind (observable).

Kind begets some other kind (not observable).

Animal Life

Birds first, then

Reptiles

Reptiles first, then

Birds

Human Life

Man was created on day six

Man is made in the image of God.

3.5 billion years ago life evolved

Humans evolved from ape-like creatures.

Beginning

of Death

After Adam sinned, not a process of creation - it is a product of man's sin.

Always been present, part of the creation process - the means by which man evolves into a higher being.

Cause of

Death

Sin, there was no death before Adam sinned (plant life not included), the breath of life was breathed into animals but not plants.

Natural process, existed from the beginning of life

Spiritual

Death

Both physical and spiritual, you will give an account of your life after you die.

Physical only, no accountability after death.

Sediment Layers,

Canyons

Form rapidly (liquefaction). Witnessed during Mt. St. Helen (observable).

Form slowly. No evidence witnessed (not observable).

Fossil Creation

Catastrophic event, rapid burial in water, (observable).

Buried by dust over long periods of time (not observable).

Marine fossils on

Mountains

Global flood, Genesis account

Rapid 40 day/night event

Springs of the deep broken up

All creation perished

All mountains covered by at least 20 ft.

About 200 legends from cultures all over the world.

Local floods, earth sinking into the ocean and rising again.

No written record or legend

Trees through

layers

Fossilized trees spanning many layers indicates rapid burial by water, observable with Mt. St. Helen. Can be created in one week (observable).

Over many years plant life died, sank into the earth, and coal formed (not observable).

Coal, Oil,

Petrified

Wood

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood, can all be made in a matter of weeks, (observable).

Coal, Oil, Petrified Wood take millions of years to form (not observable).

Biblical Day

Recognize that the Biblical day means 24 hours and accept it as fact

Hebrew word "Yom", in all cases, means short period of time

defined to be evening and morning

days are distinguished between seasons and years (Genesis 1:14)

God's own word (Exodus 10:11)

writing style of Genesis is narrative, not poetic

genealogy of human race given

Some, recognize that the Biblical day means 24 hours but reject the account as a myth.

Others, interpret the Biblical definition of day to mean millions of years.

• In my humble opinion, yes. What if God created bacteria that was capable of Evolution?

Answer 2

Though one can claim to believe in Divinely-guided evolution, this is often not the case. The general paradigm in which Evolution is taught, is one of mere natural causes. This may then be taken as an implicit excuse for hedonism, as few people want "bothersome" rules, or limitations to their personal pleasure. Lack of self-discipline has led to epidemic obesity, drunkenness, divorce rates, violence etc.
Many think that science, and specifically Evolution, have proved that there is no God. They don't comprehend that even if Evolution was an unquestionable fact, it would not automatically follow that God isn't there. They also seem unaware that there are some highly-qualified scientists who do not believe in Evolution.

Those wishing to look for further evidence may find these links useful:See also:

Is there evidence against Evolution?

God's wisdom seen in His creations

Can you show that God exists?

Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible

Answer 3

Creation and evolution already coexist in the Catholic Church, simply because recent popes have been sensible enough not to put doctrine at odds with provable fact. The result is 'theistic evolution', the concept that evolution did indeed occur, but that God guided the process. Scientists do not accept theistic evolution as factual because it is incompatible with natural selection, but at least it allows traditional concepts of creation to coexist with scientific fact.

Now, not only the Catholic Church, but other mainstream denominations accept the reality of evolution and say that they see no incompatibility. Inevitably, Christianity must come to terms with our natural history.