The schism between creationism and evolution has become so pronounced in our culture that many people consider the ideas incompatible. Proponents on both sides of the false divide are so uncompromisingly convinced of their own ideas that they’ve lost the ability to recognize the validity of each other’s claims. Ideological inflexibility by marginal groups on opposite fringes of the political spectrum has tainted the national attitude toward God and science and has inhibited our collective understanding of, and appreciation for, both.
Tennessee and Louisiana have enacted laws that permit public schools to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of ideas that “can cause controversy.” These laws essentially enable teachers to indoctrinate their students with a politically perverted, exclusively creationist worldview. The creationist curriculum unfairly calls into question such widely accepted scientific theories as evolution, the age of the earth and climate change. While creationists argue that their approach to education cultivates critical thinking, in reality it just increases the portion of our population that is ill-equipped to contribute to scientific and social progress.
By distorting scientific understanding to make it fit a literal interpretation of the Bible and reshaping history to align with a politically conservative agenda, hardcore creationists give themselves, and God, a bad rap. It’s no wonder self-purported intellectuals are so eager to distinguish their ideas from those of believers. However, in the haste to separate science from religion, some proponents of evolution have fallen victim to the same sort of ideological rigidity as strict creationists.
Just as radical Republicans frequently use the theory of creation as a recruitment/brainwashing tool, atheists have distorted Darwinism into an instrument for denying the existence of a divine creator. That was never Darwin’s intent. He believed it was entirely possible to be “an ardent Theist and an Evolutionist.” Yet many modern evolutionists are quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
In the atheistic portrayal of history, humankind is basically a community of cosmic jackpot winners, with no true rhyme, reason or purpose for being. There was a big bang, and then — “poof.” From the petri dish of random chaos emerged an infinitely interconnected planet with the highly specific and incomprehensibly complex conditions required for life to evolve. In my opinion, this is akin to saying that an explosion in a printing press could produce a perfect encyclopedia. I’m not saying that I don’t believe the Big Bang theory — I’m just pointing out the improbability of it having happened unintentionally. Why couldn’t there be a Big God behind the Big Bang?
It’s crazy to think that the earth is only 6,000 years old, as hardcore creationists assert. However, in my mind, it’s equally crazy to think that our universe came out of nowhere and for no particular reason. We can embrace new scientific discoveries without betraying a belief in a divine being, and on the other side of the coin, we can also foster faith in a Holy God without abandoning reason. In pitting the two ideas against one another and making them mutually exclusive, we inhibit our ability to fully understand and wonder at the awesome world that we have been designed to occupy.