Creationism v. Evolution
Creationism vs. Evolution, Can They Be Reconciled?
With the evolution vs. creationism wars continuing to rage in Kansas, Tennessee, and now Oklahoma, this subject is as timely as ever. I do not wish to make any special claim as a biblical scholar. I am, in fact, a lowly attorney, but like any educated heir to Judeo-Christian values I have a passing familiarity with the Bible.
The biggest obstacle between creationism and evolution is time. The biblical story of creationism roughly tracks evolution, with the time compressed to six days. So a solution might be to address the issue of time. It is well known and no longer terribly controversial that Einstein theorized that as objects speed up time slows down, and at the speed of light time stops altogether. It is also established that light can only exist and move at the speed of light, so for light there is no time.
Let us review how God and Jesus are described in various places in the Bible. Christ is commonly referred to in terms of light, e.g., “light of the world,” etc., especially in the first chapter of John. He is also arguably changed to a creature of light during the Transfiguration, see Matthew, chapter 17: “And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.” I think it is no heresy to describe Christ as a being of light, especially before he took on his corporeal form. Leaving aside any debates on the homoousian and heteroousion theories of the substance of Christ and God the Father, then God should be light as well, at least as long as he is not appearing in a corporeal form. And for some Old Testament examples, God presented himself to Moses in a burning bush, i.e., as light; and witness the statement from Malachi chapter four: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”
Also telling is that the Bible directly addresses the issue of time and God in 2 Peter chapter three: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Revelations also discusses this, specifically in chapter ten: “And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, THAT THERE SHOULD BE TIME NO LONGER: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, THE MYSTERY OF GOD SHOULD BE FINISHED, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” (emphasis added)
So what is the mystery of God? This passage suggests that it is time, or the lack thereof. After all, what can time mean to an eternal being? Provocatively, this reference to time and the end of time is also couched in terms of the creation.
I have synthesized all these items into a theory that I feel does no tremendous violence to either evolution or creationism. God is light when he does not voluntarily take on a corporeal form, light exists only at the speed of light, there is no time at the speed of light, so the time periods delineated in the Bible which refer specifically to the acts of God are meaningless and put there for the convenience and understanding of mortal readers. There is no reason that the mechanism by which God does his creation could not be natural selection with a divine component, once the problem of time is addressed..