The Bible is the written word of God
Introduction
Some people have considered that the theory of evolution is incompatible with religious beliefs, particularly Decristianism . The first chapters of the biblical book Degenesis describes the creation of God in the world, plants, animals and human beings. A literal interpretation of Genesis seems incompatible with the gradual evolution of humans and other organisms by natural processes. Regardless of the biblical Narrative, Christian beliefs in the immortality of the soul and in human beings as created in the image of God have looked like many as contrary to the evolutionary origin of human beings from non -human animals.
The creation of Adam, detail of the fresco of the roof of Miguel Ángel, 1508-12; In the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.
Developing
The attacks for religious reasons began during Darwin’s life. In 1874 Charles Hodge, an American Protestant theologian, published Darwinism? , one of the most articulated attacks on the theory of evolution. Hodge perceived Darwin’s theory as the most completely naturalistic that can be imagined and much more atheist than his predecessor Lamarck. He argued that the human eye design shows that it has been planned by the Creator, such as the design of a watch shows a watchmaker. He concluded that the denial of design in nature is actually the denial of God.
Another Protestant theologians saw a solution to the difficulty through the argument that God operates through intermediate causes. The origin and movement of the planets could be explained by the law of gravity and other natural processes without denying the creation and providence of God. Similarly, evolution could be seen as the natural process through which God gave existence to living beings and developed them according to their plan. Thus, Ah Strong, president of the Rochester Theological Seminar in the state of New York, wrote in his systematic theology: we grant the principle of evolution, but we consider it only as the method of divine intelligence. The brutal ancestry of human beings was not incompatible with their excellent condition of creatures in the image of God. Strong made an analogy with the miraculous conversion of water in Christ’s wine: wine in the miracle was not water because water had been used in its elaboration, nor is man a gross because the gross has made some contributions to his creation. Arguments for Darwin’s theory of the Roman Catholic theologians also also.
Gradually, well entered the twentieth century, evolution by natural selection was accepted by most Christian writers. Papapío XII in his encyclicalhumani generis acknowledged that biological evolution was compatible with the Christian faith, although he argued that God’s intervention was necessary for the creation of the human soul. Paphase Paul II, in a speech before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, deplored the interpretation of the Bible texts as scientific statements instead of religious teachings, and added:
New scientific knowledge has led us to realize that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis . In fact, it is remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, after a series of discoveries in several fields of knowledge. Convergence, neither sought nor manufactured, of the results of a work done independently is a significant argument in favor of this theory.
Other dominant Christian denominations expressed similar opinions. The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in 1982 adopted a resolution that declares that biblical scholars and theological schools … find that the scientific theory of evolution does not conflict with its interpretation of the origins of life found in the Biblical Literature. The World Lutheran Federation in 1965 said that the assumptions of evolution surround us as much as the air we breathe and are not more escapeable. At the same time, the statements of theology are made as responsibly as ever. In this sense, both science and religion are here to stay, and … they must remain in a healthy tension of mutual respect. Similar statements have been advanced by Jewish authorities and other important religions. In 1984, the 95th Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbines adopted a resolution that declares: considering that the principles and concepts of biological evolution are basic to understand science … We call on science teachers and local school authorities In all states to demand quality textbooks that are based on modern scientific knowledge and exclude scientific creationism.
Opposing these points of view were the Christian denominations that continued to maintain a literal interpretation of the Bible. A succinct expression of this interpretation is found in the Declaration of Belief of the Creation Research Society, founded in 1963 as a professional organization of trained and laity who are firmly committed to special scientific creation (see creationism):
The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is inspired by its entirety, all its statements are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. For the student of nature, this means that the story of the origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.
However, many scholars and theologians of the Bible have long rejected a literal interpretation as unsustainable because the Bible contains incompatible statements. The same beginning of the book of Genesis presents two different creation narratives. Extending throughout chapter 1 and the first verses of chapter 2, is the six -day family narrative, in which God creates human beings, both men and women, to their own image on the sixth day, after create light, earth, firmament, fish, birds and cattle. But in verse 4 of chapter 2 a different narrative begins, in which God creates a male human being, then plant a garden and create the animals, and only then proceed to take a rib to the man to make a woman.
Bible scholars point out that the Bible is infallible with respect to religious truth, not in matters that are not important for salvation . Agustín, considered by many the greatest Christian theologian, wrote at the beginning of the 5th century in his Genesi ad litteram (literal comment on Genesis):
It also wonders what our belief should be about the form and form of heaven, according to sacred writing. Many scholars are involved in long discussions on these issues, but sacred writers with their deepest wisdom have omitted them. Such issues are useless for those who seek bliss. And what is worse, consume a very valuable time that should be dedicated to what is spiritually beneficial . What do I care if heaven is like a sphere and the earth is locked up by him and suspended in the middle of the universe, or if heaven is like an album and the earth is on it and floating to the side?
Agustín later adds in the same chapter: as for the form of heaven, sacred writers did not want to teach the men who could not be useful for their salvation. Agustín is saying that the book of Genesis is not an elementary book of astronomy. It is a book about religion, and its religious authors do not have the purpose of resolving issues about the form of the universe that have no relevance to seek salvation.
In the same vein, John Paul II said in 1981:
The Bible itself tells us about the origin of the universe and its composition, not to provide us with a scientific treaty, but to establish the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe . The Holy Scripture wants to simply declare that the world was created by God, and to teach this truth it is expressed in the terms of cosmology in use at the time of the writer. Any other teaching on the origin and composition of El Universe is oblivious to the intentions of the Bible, which does not want to teach how heavens were made but how he goes to heaven.
Juan Pablo’s argument was clearly an answer to Christian fundamentalists who see in Genesis a literal description of how the world was created by God. In modern times, biblical fundamentalists have constituted a minority of Christians, but periodically they have gained considerable public and political influence, particularly in the United States. The opposition to the teaching of evolution in the United States can large.
According to his emphasis on Saturday of the seventh day as a memorial of biblical creation, the Seventh -day Adventists have insisted on the recent creation of the life and universality of the Flood, who believe they deposited the rocks that contain fossils. This distinctively Adventist interpretation of Genesis became the hard nucleus of the science of creation at the end of the 20th century and joined the laws of balanced treatment of Arkansas and Louisiana (which are analyzed below). Many Pentecostal, which generally support a literal interpretation of the Bible, have also adopted and backs. However, they have differentiated themselves from adventists on the seventh day and other supporters of the science of creation in their tolerance of diverse points of view and the limited importance they attribute to the controversy evolution-creation.
During the 1920s, biblical fundamentalists helped influence more than 20 state legislatures to discuss laws against evolution, and four arkansa states, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee prohibited the teaching of evolution in their public schools in their public schools. A spokesman for antievolutionists Fuewilliam Jennings Bryan, three times the Democratic candidate failed to the presidency of the United States, who said in 1922: we will expel Darwinism of our schools. In 1925 Bryan participated in the accusation (see scopes trial) Dejahn t. Scopes, a secondary school teacher at Dayton, Tennessee, who recognized that he had violated state law that prohibited the teaching of evolution.
William Jennings Bryan (down to the left, with a fan) and Clarence Darrow (center to the right, crossed arms) in an audience room in Dayton, Tennessee, during the Scopes trial, July 1925.
conclusion
In 1968 the United States Supreme Court declared any law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools unconstitutional. After that time, the Christian fundamentalists presented bills in several state legislatures that ordered that the teaching of the science of evolution be balanced by assigning the same time the action of creation . The science of creation argues that all kinds of organisms arose abruptly when God created the universe, that the world has only a few thousand years and that the biblical flood was a real event in which only a couple of each animal species survived.
In the 80 Arkansas and Louisiana he approved laws that require the balanced treatment of the science of evolution and the science of creation in their schools, but the opponents successfully challenged laws as violations of the separation of the Church and the constitutionally ordered state . The Arkansas Statute was declared unconstitutional in a federal court after a public trial in Little Rock . Louisiana’s law was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that Louisiana’s creationism was unconstitutional because, promoting the religious belief that a supernatural being created humanity, which is adopted by the science science of creation, religion inadmissibly supports.
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