Origins – The debate and beyond the debate

What follows is my take on this subject.

1. The study of Origins is not a hard science like say physics or chemistry, where one can conduct an experiment and determine fairly accurately whether a hypothesis is true or false. It like all other soft sciences (e.g. physiology and sociology) gathers a set of data and then attempts to piece together the puzzle. It therefore entails a certain amount of presuppositions, guesswork, conjecture and circumstantial evidence and combines them into a theory that can not by its very nature be tested. This leads to ambiguity.

2. There are usually three types of people involved in this debate:

a. The people who are the strongest advocates of a particular view, most often have an agenda that has nothing to do with the science involved. They are attempting to either bolster their own epistemology or tear down their opponent’s epistemology. The Creationists are advocates of a literal view of Scripture. Most Evolutionists are advocates of materialism. Each views the other side’s position as an attack on their deeply held beliefs. In their quest to justify themselves, they are more than willing to manipulate the data to their own ends, by either overstating their case, creating strawmen of the other side or downplaying or denying their own weaknesses. Unfortunately this is just as true of Christians as it is of non-Christians. Equally unfortunate is the fact that each side as so demonized the other that we have created barriers for any real give and take. It is like a courtroom where one side is bared from presenting its case before the jury. And both sides do this!

b. The real people in the know, the actual scientist, rarely have intimate knowledge the entire picture. They are too busy working on their own little piece of the puzzle, and leave it to the advocates of their particular side to put it all together, which they believe without question.

c. Laymen like me and most likely you, who know almost nothing about the science behind the issues and are usually the first people to argue about this. When we do this we are arguing from complete ignorance. Laymen include people who have read a few books or websites from the advocates above and think they actually “know” something about the subject, when in fact they know next to nothing. Sorry but studying the subject as a living everyday and reading a few books here and there do not equate.

3. This is more of an epistemic battle than a real search for truth.

4. Due to the facts above I have concluded that the entire subject is a morass of goobly goop and it would be extremely difficult to figure out what is and is not true. Therefore I am a functioning agnostic when it comes to origins. I quite simple don’t know. Not that I don’t care. I find the subject extremely fascinating.

Before I move on I want to clearly state that I believe there is a God, who is the tri-personal God described in Holy Scriptures and preached by the Church, and He has created the heavens and the earth. See my earlier posts for why I believe this.

I think everyone, both Christian and atheist, both creationist and evolutionist can agree that given an omnipotent God, by definition, He can create the heavens and the earth through any method He deems fit. So if it is as simple as that, why do we Christians get so hung up on the subject? And how can I as a Christian just simply walk away from the fight, when most other Christians claim that to do so is to undermine the Faith?

As always it has something to do with a difference in our respective epistemologies, our theories of knowledge.

To be continued . . .