2015-06

In the Beginning God Created...
‘‘A
new theory could answer
the question of how life
began – and throw out the
need for God” began a
recent article that caught
my eye in a national newspaper.
If such a theory proved
true - would it really get rid
of the requirement for God?
Is God just an explanatory
framework? As the gaps in
our understanding diminish - is
there less room for God?
On one level, I wouldn’t fi nd
such a discovery particularly
troubling. Christians claim that
our God is the “maker of all
that is, seen and unseen”. As
science reveals more about the universe,
there is maybe just a little less that’s
unseen - not less room for God.
On another level - there is something
that might trouble us Christians. We
believe that God has inspired the books
of the Bible. Are its claims about creation
true?
Over the years I’ve rather inevitably
had to take an interest in
this sort of thing. It partly
stems from my days at
university. When people
learned that I was both
doing a geology degree
and an active member of
the Christian Union, I came
to expect the upcoming
questions: what did I think of
“Creation v Evolution”? Can
they be reconciled or are
the two entirely incompatible? Clearly the
universe hasn’t been created in both six
days and just under 14 billion years – has
it?
Sometimes an alternative viewpoint
helps to challenge our assumptions.
Around the beginning of the 5th century
AD, a Christian bishop called Augustine
took interpreting the creation account
very seriously. He wrote a book called
‘The Literal Meaning of Genesis’.
He insisted that the Bible’s earliest
chapters could be interpreted
both literally and fi guratively but
that our understanding must
also be informed by other
excerpts from scripture on
creation to form a coherent
whole.
Augustine’s literal
interpretation might
surprise you. He
suggested that the six
‘days’ of creation could
be one overlapping
‘As science
reveals more
about the
universe, there
is maybe just a
little less that’s
unseen - not less
room for God’
or recurring, timeless ‘day’, seen from
God’s perspective beyond time. In those
‘days’, Augustine proposed, God creates
the potential and causes that lead to
“future perfections” to be “manifest during
the ages at the appropriate time”. He
envisaged an initial moment of creation
- with time, formless matter and space
appearing together - out of nothing - and
developing from there.
Over 1,600 years since it was written,
much of Augustine’s book still seems to
me fresh and very relevant. Of course
some of it now seems outdated but in
reading it you can sense his humility and
wonder. That’s a good starting position,
either for engaging with scripture, science
or both.
Augustine’s account of creation was
by no means a majority view in the early
church and it would be wrong to portray
him as too closely anticipating modern
theories. He saw God as ultimately
in control - even in things seemingly
random. Nevertheless, I believe he left a
potential theological framework that offers
Christians engaged in natural sciences
considerable freedom to fully explore
where evidence leads them.
David Green
The Abbey Public House
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St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats
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Church Offi ce: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffi eld S8 0GA
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Tel: (0114) 274 5086
email: offi ce@stchads.org
website: www.stchads.org