‘Growing up with dinosaurs’
15th February 2009
John 14; 1 – 14
‘All things came into being through him…’
If I told you that I grew up with dinosaurs you may be a little confused!
But when I was a child I was fascinated by these prehistoric monsters. I remember how my mum and dad bought me a special kit with moulds and plaster mix to pour in. I remember making a diplodocus. You remember the one: thin at one end, thick in the middle and thin at the other! I painted the model and carefully added a special glaze. I proudly showed it to my school teacher. I knew about evolution from a young age. I also knew about the Christian faith having attended a church school and the Methodist run Sunday school.
At the time I didn’t realise that the theory of evolution had stirred up so much trouble. If we read the creation stories in Genesis as literal history there seems to be conflict with the theory that life evolved over millions of years. However, I don’t think that I ever regarded the creation stories in Genesis as historical or scientific and neither have I ever been troubled by the concept of evolution. My faith does not depend on a historical understanding of the creation stories.
Just before ‘The Origin of Species’ was published, Charles Darwin sent an advanced copy of his book to his clergyman friend The Rev’d Charles Kingsley. Kingsley responded with great enthusiasm saying: ‘All I have seen of it awes me.’ ‘I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms.’
However, not everyone was as open minded as the Rev’d Charles Kingsley and the battle lines were drawn. Over the years the theory of evolution divided both scientific and religious groups. Today we continue to live in times of great change. It is change that may seem to threaten our faith and shake the foundations of the church. On this 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, how can we be assured of our faith and live out our faith with great optimism?
First of all
1. God is the origin of all things
In our Gospel reading from St. John we heard the famous words of the prologue. The prologue in John is sometimes regarded as the Creation story of the New Testament. In John, we see that Christ is with God in the beginning of Creation. St. John wrote:
‘All things came into being through him…’
God is the origin of all things. Our knowledge of the universe is incredibly small. In fact, we are just scratching the surface. The wonders of the universe are almost too incredible to grasp. The Bible teaches us that God created the heavens and earth. The Bible does not tell us about evolution although the order of creation in Genesis may seem to have a similar sequence with the creation of human beings coming last of all. The Genesis account was never meant to be a scientific but to simply make the point that God is the origin of all things.
When I look at creation in all its vastness I am overcome. When I look at the beauty of nature in all its variety I am drawn to worship the creator. When I observe the unbelievable distances of far galaxies my God is no longer reduced to my limited thinking. When I read about the advances of nuclear physics I know that my God cares for minute detail. My God is the Lord almighty who is greater than I could ever imagine yet he cares for the likes of you and me with such love and compassion.
St. Ignatius said that the purpose of creation is to lead us to the creator.
Secondly
2. God is the origin of a New Creation
St. John wrote:
‘But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’
Here, St. John speaks of the New Creation in Christ. The Risen Jesus was the first born of this New Creation which has eternal dimensions. This means that the destiny of Creation has been renewed through Jesus Christ. It is this New Creation that demonstrates the extent of God’s Love. The fact that we can become God’s children reveals that we are all cared for as individuals. We might be small in the Universe but we are big in God’s sight and have eternal value.
I grew up with dinosaurs but I also grew up with the sense that there is far more to life than the material world. Over the years, my life of faith has evolved so that with each passing year I feel even more loved by God. Dinosaurs never troubled me, except that I thought they must have been pretty scary. I grew up with dinosaurs and an open mind to both matters of science and faith. There have been many challenges on the way but I believe that as Christians we have nothing to fear from Darwin’s discoveries. Neither do we have anything to fear from those who justify their atheism from Darwin’s discoveries.
Today, scientists have discovered much more about evolution and some of Darwin’s theories of ‘natural selection’ are disputed. But this shows that there is always much more to discover about our extraordinary world. Darwin and others may show us how things happened but not why things have happened. Finally, this analogy may help:
‘When you have discovered every secret of the sculptor’s art, when you have made plain to the man in the street what tools he used, by what stages the work progressed, and what tools were employed upon each separate detail, you have not “explained away” the sculptor, or made belief in his existence a needless superstition.’#
# Quoted in Church Times 13th February 2009
