Connections….
Four views on Evolution
I’ve noticed there are about
three or four general positions on Creation/evolution people who claim to be
Christians hold, though some feel you can’t be a Christian and hold some of
them. I’ve read enough books and had
enough long discussions with folk from all four positions, but I’m no scientist
so I approach this article as a scientific amateur. Here are the four positions I’ve seen:
1. God as Instantaneous
Creator
These people (often called
“creationists”) believe God created the earth and all life in an instant—or at
least a short time (perhaps six days) as a miracle of making something out of
nothing. This view argues for God as
“Instantaneous creator.” They claim “miracle creationism” is how life was
formed and argue that a God-caused-miracle, and not natural processes, brought
life to the earth. These folk say God
created Adam and Eve in an instantaneous miracle. For them all the species of life we have today were created at
“creation” and each has continued since that original instantaneous miracle
with no new species “developing.”
2. God as Initial Creator
These people doubt creation
as a moment in time and argue for a gradual model of evolution. They believe life started out simple and
gradually changed as it had genetic changes.
They argue that simpler life forms gradually mutated like our flu virus
mutates annually. With these changes
there came, over millions of years new branches and lines developed into
separate species of life. The
Christians who take this position do not necessarily exclude God but place Him
at the beginning of this gradual process—to them God is the Designer of the
process, the First Cause, the Initiator. Indeed they sometimes sound like they are
saying that God is the author of evolution—that God started the ball rolling
and evolution is His ball still. To them evolution as God’s means of
creation. This group does not think very highly of “instantaneous creationism”
and think it is more magic than science. Gradual evolutionists see developing life as a “natural process”
ordained by God.
3. God as ongoing Creator
These people agree with the
gradual evolutions at all points except where they place God in the
process. They complain that the people
who make God the initiator have a too-distant God who starts the process and
walks off letting everything else happen “naturally.” So they put the Creator-God at every tiny step in the
evolutionary process—to them God is an “ongoing
Creator.” Thus they do not so much
claim that “God created the mountains” as “God right now is creating
mountains.” They make the same claim
for life—that God is at every point in the creation of life and has been down
through all of history—in Him all things work together. They reject the notion
that evolution is a “natural process” and claim it as a “divine process.”
4. God as periodic Creator
There is yet another
model—the notion of “punctuated equilibrium.”
This idea emerged from the data in the fossil record which seems to indicate
a “leap” of new life forms occurs periodically after millions of years of
stability. These folk see God showing
up as Creator at each one of these bursts of life then letting the natural
process continue—hence God as “periodic
Creator” Those who take this
position reject the notion of God as
long-ago initiator of a process that looks “natural.” They place the Creator actively in the
process any time a new species is “created” by Him during these bursts.
So what do you think? Which of these views
do you prefer? Of course there are
nuances within these view I’m not taking space to describe, and there are other
views on origins as well. But these
three are the most common. If this were
a multiple choice test which would you take?
How do you believe God created life—instantaneously, gradually or
periodically?
However,
this article is actually not about evolution. It is about
sanctification. Sanctification is the
work God does in us to make us like Jesus
Christ. I’ve noted there are generally three views of sanctification in the
church:
1. Sanctification
creationists
These people
believe God can fill a Christian with the Holy Spirit and in a single moment
cleanse that person from their inclination to sin and empower them to love God
and other and to obey Christ fully—in an instant miracle of spiritual
transformation.
2. God as initial
sanctifier
These people
believe God infuses grace in a person at regeneration-justification and we
become good people on the basis of that initial sanctification alone (e.g.
Catholic “virtue” or Baptist “Lordship Salvation.”)
3. Sanctification
evolutionists
These people doubt
the cleansing moment can happen instantaneously but call for an ongoing gradual
process of millions of little works of grace throughout a whole lifetime—in
fact this sanctification may appear to be a “natural process,” though it was set up by God
4. Periodic
sanctification.
These people see
our leaps forward spiritually as episodic.
While they claim there is a sort of equilibrium in Christian living
periodically God swoops down to initiate a dramatic work that raises our level
of holiness. Following these times of
personal revival there comes a period of equilibrium and integration of the new
lifestyle and values. Then the cycle
repeats—raising us again to a new level: “from glory to Glory.”
But my question is
this: Are these two matters related? That
is, do both views spring from some a
priori presupposition a person holds?
Do some of us have a bias toward
believing things happen in miracle moments and thus lean toward that view
in both creation and sanctification?
And do others of us have an inner
bias toward process gradualism and thus prefer both gradual sanctification
and gradual creation?
It’s worth
thinking about…
Keith Drury